Breakfast at Sotheby's: An A-Z of the Art World

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Hook offers up a dishy lexicon of art-world topics and terminology in this loosely structured dictionary. As painting specialist for Sotheby's auction house and a popular appraiser on Antiques Roadshow, Hook is fascinated by the relationship between art and money, and by the ways in which an artwork obtains its market value. Relying on 35 years of experience and anecdote, Hook divides his guide into sections that cover artists' backstories, artists' subjects, visual impact, provenance, and market variance. Each section contains a unique alphabet of pithy, bite-size essays, which lay bare outrageous episodes of art history and oddities of audience taste. Football, for example, charts auction sales against ballplayer salaries over time. Interiors reveals that Bonnard's bathrooms and Matisse's hotels are in demand, while no one wants paintings of churches. War (191418) cheerfully lists artists whose work would have fetched better prices if only they had perished earlier. With its tone of art-history-textbook-meets-tabloid, Hook's witty primer provides a truthful yet humorous crash course, an insider's take that is more gentle ribbing than art-world expos. (Booklist)

The 21st-Century Art Book

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The 21st‐Century Art Book" is an A‐to‐Z guide of contemporary artists featuring established art‐world figures - Maurizio Cattelan, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Wall - alongside rising stars of the next generations. Global in scope, the book features work from 50 countries across a variety of mediums, from painting, drawing, and sculpture to digital art, video installation, and performance.
Each of the 280 artists included has a dedicated page pairing a significant artwork from his or her oeuvre with lively and informative text. An international directory of major art events along with a helpful glossary round out the package, making this both a must‐have resource and a beautifully illustrated celebration of contemporary art.

Rendez-Vous with Art

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The premise two art experts look at some of the world's most magnificent works in tandem is a good one, offering readers guided tours of the Louvre, the Prado, the Palazzo Pitti, and other prestigious institutions. The experts in question, Philippe de Montebello, who spent 31 years as director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Martin Gayford (Man With a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Freud), a highly regarded British art critic, certainly fit the bill. The book adds an ingenious twist to the classic approach to art criticism, which is, for the most part, effective. Montebello and Gayford offer depth and context to key works by Bosch, Goya, Vermeer, followed by erudite discussions. The authors' admissions that they didn't appreciate certain styles or eras at first; explanations regarding the effects of a museum's physical layout on a visitor's experience and interpretation, and the declaration that we're now spending more time looking at photos and reproductions of artworks than the real thing are sure to provoke a response. Assuming readers can get past the authors' egos (which loom large) and their penchant for peppering their text with purple prose, there are considerable insights into the featured art. Publishers Weekly

Secrets of Backyard Bird Photography

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Photographing birds in your backyard is a convenient, rewarding, and addictive adventure. "Secrets of Backyard Bird Photography" is a guide to that pursuit. In this book, author and wildlife photographer J. Chris Hansen teaches techniques for creating professional-quality images of the subjects right in your yard. This book covers all aspects of backyard bird photography, including the best camera equipment to use and the basics of attracting birds using bird feeders, perches, backgrounds, and photo blinds. You'll learn about the common camera settings and composition styles used to create outstanding backyard bird images. This book also offers ideas and examples of ways to exhibit your photography, including step-by-step instructions for a variety of fun, easy projects for the do-it-yourselfer. "Secrets of Backyard Bird Photography" contains a collection of beautiful, detailed images that illustrate the important aspects of creating stunning photographs of the birds right in your backyard.